Trinity RPG - Alternate Teleportation modes

[jsnead]

In looking over the Alternate Teleportation Modes PDF on this site, I was in general quite impressed, but I found that the alternate Warp modes were significantly too powerful, especially with regards to affecting time,w hich seems both like a bad idea and as a way of making the most powerful Psions unmanagably powerful. So, here are my revisions of most alternate modes:

• Warp Shield: (as written)

•• Scramble Space: The teleporter can warp distances in a selective fashion so as to make entering or leaving a room or traveling down a hallway considerably more difficult. It can also allow someone to squeeze through a small space and to affect the passage of vehicles and other large objects. This power will not allow an person or object to move through an opening or passage less than half a wide as necessary, nor will it prevent a person or object from moving through an opening or passage more than 10 times as wide as the person or object.

System: Spend 1 Psi and roll. A single success restricts passage through some opening so that anyone attempting to move through it must make a successful Dexterity + Athletics roll. Each additional success increases the difficulty of this roll by +1. This process can also be reversed, causing openings to become wider (in one dimension only) either reducing the difficulty of the roll by -1 per success or adding 1 die/success to any rolls to squeeze through the opening (player's choice). If the opening is too small to squeeze through, then a single success provides on (no-chance) die to roll to squeeze through, with additional successes functioning normally. The power does not work on any doorway, alley or hallway more than Permanent Psi meters across. At Warp ••••, this distance doubles. This effect lasts for a number of turns equal to twice the character's Psi score.

••• Pocket Dimension: (as written)

•••• Spatial Alteration: The teleporter can compress a 5 meter wall down to 10 centimeters or completely close a doorway or passage. Because this power only affects a single dimension at a time, it affects a much larger area than Psi x 2 meters on a side and Psi meters thick.

System: Spend 2 Psi and roll. Each success either triples or reduces by a factor of 3 the object's height or width, while having no affect on it's weight. With four successes, a 10 cm speed bump could become a 10 meter wall or a 10 meter wall could become a 10 cm speed bump. It is possible to affect only a portion of an object, which does not harm the object at all. This power cannot be used on living beings, and it takes an entire turn to take effect, so only individuals who are either unaware or incapable of moving could be harmed by a wall extending forth to squash them. This effect lasts for 10 times Psi score in minutes.

••••• Warp (a.k.a. "Wormhole"): With the Warp technique, the Warping Mode, allows a Teleporter to actually bridge two locations in space-time. Instead of teleporting an object from one place to another, this power creates a doorway through which people and material can be transported.

System: Spend 3 Psi and roll. The difficulty of the Warp is determined from the location familiarity table for the location desired. If successful, the result is a glowing bluish white portal, similar to a Transportal. However, the destination location is visible from the origin side of the portal and travelers may return through the portal at will.

The portal is usually around 2 meters square and may be adjusted 1 meter per Psi point spent in any dimension. The portal will last for a number of minutes equal to the psion's Psi score. The psion may drop the Warp at will.

Thoughts?

[Blue Thunder]

I also think affecting time is a bad idea. Maybe Atwan can affect it, to a small degree, but no character psion should be able to.

I'm working on an e-book with a horde of new psi techniques for all the aptitutdes, and I did a little for Teleportation recently (it's one of the last Aptitudes I'll be completing). The Scramble Space technique looks exactly like what I was trying to do with another technique. Also, I've found that making techniques for Warping is so much easier than for the other two Modes...

[Finbar]

And everyone forgets about The Greks....

It's a PDF re: a new race (sorta), with some new Knacks, Abby Powers, a heavily-modified version of Jackson Creed's chronokinesis (a bit powerful, but....), and some alternative teleportation techniques from yours truly...and we all know my love of teleporters...

If it helps...

FR

[Anon]

About the Greks PDF

All I'm getting is a Adobe 'This file is damaged and cannot be repaired' error message. Anyone else getting this error?

[Sprocket]

Re: Teleporters affecting time-

Someone must not have told Ian Watson that this was suppossed to be a bad idea. Check out the additional mode for Teleportation in his Trinity Storytellers Guide wiki - it's called "chronowarping". ::devil

[Ian Watson]

Re: Teleporters affecting time-

Someone must not have told Ian Watson that this was suppossed to be a bad idea. Check out the additional mode for Teleportation in his Trinity Storytellers Guide wiki - it's called "chronowarping". ::devil

True, it allows for time travel, but in a very limited sense. Its major practical use is to give new colonies a boost when starting up, so if they're cut off from Earth again they needn't necessarily lag behind technologically and such. Or you can be faster to respond to a non-psychic distress call.

If you're at point A, and point B is five LY away, you can teleport to point B five years in the past. But you can't do the same thing back to point A to travel a total of 10 years: you will always teleport to the most recent timeframe of a place you've been.

So if you've already been to point B in the present, chronowarping is essentially useless for you.

Obviously the mode hasn't been written up yet, but it does have more limits than these. This is just the major one. So while it is an effective time travel, it's more of a "shifted time frame" rather than true "I can go back and forth as I please" travel.

[Finbar]

Actually, the lag issue has already been dealt with, as long as a week or so is acceptable.

a) Datapods can be sent that take about a week to get to their destination. A leviathan can get there in a reasonably short period of time if it's needed.

As telepathy works in terms of knowing the target, instead of distance, you just need a pair of telepaths in the circuit.

c) And then there is the Orgotek comm device that allows for instantaneous communiction.

d) Teleporters (especially with using the TPG rules) can blink there as soon as they get the message. It's just a matter of shifting successes around to minimize time...

If it helps...

Also, is anyone able to bring up the Greks PDF? I can, but that doesn't really help the situation at hand...

FR

[Blue Thunder]

Actually, I believe there is a distance limit to Telepathy. Otherwise the Ministry never would have needed to build that "telepathic range extender" thing to contact Khantze Lu Ge when it was cut off (and it only barely reached). I believe Telepathy range is equal to the Basic Technique from the book (you can the area for familiar minds), or sight.

[Finbar]

The range on telepathy has been revised a couple of times. It appears that a telepath can talk to any mind that he is familiar with over any distance, and that the extender was needed due to a lack of familiar minds (KLG being sent off before there being psions)...

FR

[Blue Thunder]

KLG had telepaths on it. It was cut off when the Upeo disappeared, and by then there were telepaths on the planet. The planet is officially Chinese, so it's safe to assume there were actually more telepaths than most other psions.

Where are you reading that telepathy has unlimited range? I haven't read anything like that.

[Finbar]

It depends on which rules you use: If you use the standard rules, it's range-based (even though there are exceptions if you are extremely familiar with the subject, such as family or lovers). However, if you use the Freeform rules, you can substitute Precision results for Range. Also, isn't there something in AsAs that changes the range issues?

FR

[Blue Thunder]

Ohhhh, you're using Free-form. Free-form isn't the standard system, so I don't consider it canon. It's just presented as another option, and several parts of it seem to go against how psi is established in the other books. I should also note that the Free-form system allows shifters to heal damage to themselves, which strongly goes against how biokinesis is described in the other books.

I don't believe Asia Ascendant changes range, or at least I overlooked it the dozen or so times I read it. Telepathy is normally based on line of sight, or you use Mind Scan (the basic technique) to "lock on" to a familiar target within Attunement range.

[Rorx]

In looking over the Alternate Teleportation Modes PDF on this site, I was in general quite impressed, but I found that the alternate Warp modes were significantly too powerful, especially with regards to affecting time,w hich seems both like a bad idea and as a way of making the most powerful Psions unmanagably powerful. So, here are my revisions of most alternate modes:

• Warp Shield: (as written)

I'm not sure about the rules matching the description. From the description it appears that the bullets/beams are being bent away from the subject, which is difficult to consider as getting extra soak. I'm more inclined to give it a +1 Difficulty to be hit per Mode in Warping, rather than a +1 Soak.

I'd also add in at Warping 5 a Selective Transportal, so the ferryman can choose what gets taken at +1 difficulty and +1Psi cost compared with the normal Transportal. This would also allow it to be used in atmosphere safely, having the normal Transportal would be a prerequisite.

[Rorx]

Looking back at my notes I also found that I also added an Anchorhead Mode to Translocation and altered Beacon and Tag so that all three were consistent.

Translocation

1A Anchorhead

Sometimes, you know you’re going to keep coming back to a certain spot, but you just don’t have the time to set up a proper familiarity with it. Some teleporters have learned how to set up an anchorhead, a place that is temporarily familiar to them to ease transport. Emergency team members usually have this ability.

System: Roll Psi; the teleporter can do one of two effects. By spending a point of temporary Psi, the location (everything within line of sight at that point) is now considered “Very Familiar” for 1 hour per success. In addition, the Psion can use Jump to move to this location despite it being outside of his visual or Spatial Sense range as long as it remains within his base Attunement range. The duration increases at Translocation 3 to 1 hour per point of Permanent Psi, and at Translocation 5 to 1 day per success. Alternatively, at Translocation 3 a single XP may be spent, making the location “Very Familiar” to him permanently.

Transmassion

1A. Beacon

Many Teleporters have a favourite or special piece of equipment (a gun, mini-comp, bio-app, etc.) that they like to be able to get hold of quickly. This ability, which is sometimes referred to jokingly as "cosmic yo-yo", allows a psion to imprint an object so that it can be drawn to them quickly and easily. A complement to Relay Object, this technique allows the psion to retrieve an object even if it is not within sight or Spatial Sense range.

System: Spend 1 Psi and roll. Each success is equal to one hour that the object is 'beaconed'. At Transmassion 3, the duration increases to 1 hour per Psi rating and at Transmassion 5 the duration increases to 1 day per success. Alternatively at Transmassion 3 the psion can spend 1XP to permanently beacon an item. Range to retrieve a tagged item with Relay Object becomes equivalent to the psions Attunement range without any bonuses due to bioware or other augmentation. For use with Transmit Object the item is considered to be “Very Familiar”.

2A. Tag

Similar to Beacon, this ability applies to living objects or people. While technically the same, there is a key difference to Tag. Just as a living target may resist a teleport when they are within sight, they may also do so when "Tagged". However, the target gets the chance to resist the "tagging" as well as the actual teleport later.

System: Spend 1 Psi and roll. Each success is equal to one hour that the person is 'tagged'. At Transmassion 4, the duration increases to 1 hour per Psi. At 5 Transmassion the duration increases to 1 day per success. Similar to Beacon, at Transmassion 4 the Psion has the option to spend 1XP in order to permanently Tag a person. Range for retrieval with Relay Person is equivalent to the psions Attunement range without any bonuses due to bioware or other augmentation. If the Tag is resisted, the target may roll their Willpower against the psion's Psi check. If the target gets more successes than the Teleporter, the Tag fails. However, the target is at a +1 difficulty to resist unless they are actively aware that they are being Tagged. For the purposes of Transmit Person by the Psion the Tagged person is considered “Very Familiar”.